


Forebears

by DiscordantWords



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 10, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 11:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6372235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscordantWords/pseuds/DiscordantWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully had once looked at him and said "We are two people who come home at night, to a home" and he—well—there were still two of them in a way, not in the way there once had been, but he still had the home. Their home. And he still went home at night, to a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forebears

**Author's Note:**

> I like the X Files a lot. I liked parts of the X Files revival. I really, really didn't like other parts. Because this is fiction, and I can do what I want, I'm going to go ahead and pretend that "Babylon" and "My Struggle II" never happened.

 

*

Mulder opened his eyes in the pre-dawn hours, unsettled for no discernible reason. He had not dreamed, or if he had, the images had faded away like wisps of smoke before he'd fully regained consciousness. The house was quiet, empty (too empty).

He sat up on the couch, his back giving a halfhearted protest, and rubbed at his eyes. He'd always been an uneasy sleeper, and there was no sense in trying to force himself back under for a few more hours once he was awake.

It was Saturday. He and Scully didn't have a case on, and barring some kind of surprise monster attack (was there any other kind, really?), the weekend stretched out in front of him: unscheduled, unplanned.

In his younger days, he would have gone into work for the hell of it. He'd have parked himself in the basement, busied himself reading about some obscure anomaly or another, and pestered Scully with phone calls until she eventually abandoned her weekend plans and joined him.

Now he lived more than two hours outside the city, lacked the desire to spent his weekend in a suit and tie, and wasn't really in any kind of position to pester Scully about much of anything. And while it was nice, in a way, to have that basement back, he didn't particularly relish spending time there without Scully. So, that was out.

He stood up, stretched, fluffed the sagging couch cushions. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon as he went into the kitchen to brew himself a pot of coffee.

He drank his coffee and spent a few hours at his computer. He read through his emails, checked his usual conspiracy blogs for anything of interest, made a few notes on things he wanted to follow up on. When he grew restless he abandoned his computer and showered, let the hot water chase away the lingering discomfort in his back.

He was too old to be sleeping on couches. But the bed was—well. The bed was too large.

He had nowhere to be and Scully wasn't there to scrunch up her face at him and make complaining sounds, but he shaved anyway. He was a Productive Member of Society again, after all. Might as well look the part.

He dressed; jeans, t-shirt, long-sleeved shirt over that. It was shaping up to be a lovely, clear day but there was still a bite in the air, a stubborn chill that resisted the first tentative touches of spring. He took a second cup of coffee out onto the porch, sat and looked out at his own humble little patch of solitude.

Before, when they'd first bought the little house, he and Scully would spend warm-weather evenings outside, stargazing. On mornings when she didn't have hospital shifts, when she could indulge herself and sprawl drowsily in their bed for hours, he would get up and make them both coffee, and she'd eventually join him out on the porch, still in her pajamas and robe.

She had been installed in her DC apartment for the better part of a year. It was good for her. Convenient to the hospital and, now, convenient to the Hoover building. Again.

He knew he should think about doing the same thing, because living like a recluse in the middle of nowhere was one thing when he was a wanted fugitive, and it was probably still fine when he was no longer a wanted fugitive but still an unemployed hermit, but it was less than ideal for a federal agent who was actually expected to show his face at the office on a somewhat regular basis.

It would make sense to do it, to give up the house, find a little apartment, and commit himself completely to this new chapter. Old chapter. Rewrite. Whatever. But Scully had once looked at him and said _"We are two people who come home at night, to a home"_ and he—well—there were still two of them in a way, not in the way there once had been, but he still had the home. Their home. And he still went home at night, to a home.

He finished his coffee, set it aside, leaned back in his chair. The late morning sun felt good on his face, in spite of the cool air.

He felt someone's eyes on him and looked up. There was a young boy standing a few paces away.

"Hi," Mulder said, straightening up in his chair.

"Hi," the boy said. He was in his early teens. Tall.

"I don't want to buy any candy."

"Oh," the boy glanced around. "Um. Okay."

Mulder looked closer. The boy's hands were empty. He was not selling anything.

"Can I help you with something?" he asked, standing up, concern sparking in his chest. The boy did not look injured, or in any particular state of distress. But they were a long way from civilization, and he did not seem to have any obvious method of transportation.

"I think you might be my father."

Mulder sucked in a breath. He took in the sweep of dark hair, the eyes, the proud set of the boy's jaw.

"Oh," he said. "Oh." He sat back down.

The boy took a half-step forward, hesitated. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. I just—I just need a minute."

Pull it together, he told himself furiously. Pull it together. His face was hot. Blood roared in his ears.

He looked up. The boy was still standing in the same place, his hands in the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt. He had tensed up, like a frightened rabbit ready to bolt.

"It's okay," Mulder said, and his voice sounded very unsteady, very much not okay.

They looked at each other, he and the boy.

"William?"

"Will," the boy said.

"Will," Mulder echoed, testing it out. It felt strange on his tongue. He swallowed. "How did you get here?"

"I took a train."

"You took a train." He tried to force his brain to fire on all cylinders. He looked at the boy's face and saw Scully, saw himself. It was dizzying.

"Can I have something to drink? It was a long walk from the station."

Drink. Yes. That was something he could do.

"There's iced tea," he said, getting to his feet. Spots danced in front of his eyes and he took a deep breath. His head cleared. "Just—wait here."

He went in through the storm door, left his son standing on the porch. There was a pitcher of tea in the fridge, glasses in the cabinet. Scully had gotten into the habit of fresh brewing their iced tea instead of buying it. He'd kept up the routine, even sliced up the lemons. His hands trembled as he poured.

He left the drinks on the counter, fumbled for his cell phone.

"Scully," he said when she came on the line. "I need you to—you need to—"

"Mulder—" there was impatience in her voice. Had she been expecting a Saturday interruption? He hadn't bothered her like that for a long time.

"I need you to come home."

Silence on the other end of the line. He could hear her breathing. When she finally spoke, her voice was lower, softer. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine. But can you—"

"I—"

"Dana," he said.

She stopped talking. Took a deep breath. "I'll leave now. Is everything—"

"Everything's fine," he said again, lowered his voice, tried for soothing. He didn't want to panic her. He was panicked enough for the both of them. "I'll explain when you get here."

He hung up, went back to the counter for the drinks. The glasses were cool against his palms.

Back out into the bright sun. For a moment he feared that the porch would be empty, that he'd imagined it all, but Will was still there. He'd sat down on the steps, his chin resting on his knees as he looked out at the tall grass.

"Drink up," Mulder said, offering the tea.

"Thanks," Will said. Ice cubes clinked against the glass as he took a small sip.

"Does anyone know you're here?"

The guilty expression said it all.

"You should call them," Mulder said finally.

"Yeah," Will took another sip of iced tea. "They're going to kill me."

Mulder sat down on the steps next to him, his back protesting, his knees creaking. He left a careful distance between them. "Where do you live?"

"Wyoming."

"You took a train from Wyoming?"

"No I—I took a bus. And then an Amtrak. And then another train." Will glanced up at him, offered a nervous smile. "No one stops you if you look like you know where you're going."

"Yeah, you have a point," he agreed, tried to keep his tone light.

Will kicked at a stone that had wedged between the deck boards. He was wearing Converse. They were dusty, well-worn.

Mulder looked down at that sneakered foot, looked at the wood underneath it. It had been a hard winter. There were gouges in the boards where he'd been careless with the snow shovel. He ought to think about sanding them down, re-staining the whole thing when the weather got a little warmer.

He looked up again, studied Will's face in profile.

Three days, he thought. I only knew you for three days.

"I dreamt about you," Will said finally, when he had worried the stone free. He kept his eyes on the ground, fixed between his canvas sneakers. "I think I have a lot of questions."

"That's okay," Mulder said. "So do I."

*

"Don't you mow the lawn?" Will had taken off his sweatshirt, set his empty glass of tea down on the porch.

Mulder squinted at the tall grass, shrugged a little. "I haven't gotten around to it."

"Want me to mow it?"

"You didn't come all this way for me to put you to work."

"No," Will said. He picked up his glass again, tipped an ice cube into his mouth, crunched it between his teeth.

The glass had left a ring of condensation on the wood steps. Mulder touched it, looked at it wonderingly.

"Wyoming," he said finally. He had vague impressions of open farmland and mountains. There had been visits there, back in his days on domestic terrorism duty. Inquiries on fertilizer. Dark times. "What's it like?"

Will shrugged. "I don't know. Home."

Silence stretched between them.

"We have cows," Will offered after a long moment.

"Cows," Mulder said, turning that over in his head. "I've never given much thought to cows."

That was not entirely true. He had thought extensively of cows in relation to the sorts of activities that bored extraterrestrials may or may not participate in. He was once displaced from a motel room by an airborne bovine.

He did not share either of those thoughts with his son.

He swallowed, looked at the boy sitting next to him. _What are your thoughts on space?_ he did not ask. _Do you know the names of the first men on the moon? Have you ever launched a rocket? I always wanted to show you how to do that._

"Is that your car?" Will asked.

Mulder followed his gaze to the Taurus parked by the side of the house. It needed a wash; he'd spent weeks ruing his decision to buy a black car when he had a driveway made of dirt and gravel and no garage to speak of.

But when the thing with the FBI had stopped seeming like an absurd fantasy and he'd awakened to the reality that, after all these years he was once more a person who woke up and put on a suit and went to work shining a flashlight into dark places to clear them of monsters, he'd needed something. Taking an Uber to work every day wasn't really an option.

The Ford Taurus had been the rental car _du jour_ of his first stint with the FBI, so it had seemed fitting to start off his second turn in a similar fashion. That model had only been available in black on the lot at the dealership, and he'd been too impatient to wait for something else.

Scully had smiled at him, one of those enigmatic smiles that he'd never quite been able to figure out, when she'd first seen it.

"Yeah," he said, his voice mildly challenging. He raised his eyebrows. "Why?"

"I thought you might drive something cooler."

He laughed, surprised. "Why on earth would you think that?"

Will shook his head, shrugged. "I don't know."

Mulder smiled a little, looked down at his hands. He knew, he thought. He'd had an image in his head, of the parents who'd given him up. Younger. Cooler. No responsibilities.

"I should call," Will said. His voice was heavy with dread. He slid a cell phone out of his pocket, looked in dismay at the dark screen. "Oh. Um. Can I use your—" he hesitated, looked around. "You do have a phone, right?"

Mulder rolled his eyes. "You've been here for an hour and you're already giving me guff." He stood up, brushed dirt from the back of his jeans, opened the door. "Phone's on the kitchen counter."

Will went into the house without hesitating. Mulder watched him go, bemused. They must be very trusting in Wyoming. Probably didn't even lock their doors at night.

After a moment, he followed Will into the kitchen. He picked up his phone off of the countertop and offered it. "Want me to charge yours?"

Will nodded, swapped phones, frowned down at Mulder's as he dialed. Mulder had seen Scully's face contort into exactly the same little frown of concentration innumerable times over the years. He forced himself to look away, to stop staring. Instead he went over to the outlet, plugged Will's phone in, watched the little battery signal blink to life.

He went to the sink, rinsed out their empty glasses, tried not to listen to Will's low voice as he spoke into the phone. He dried the glasses, left his son in the kitchen and went back out to the porch, looked up at the trees. The branches were naked, stark and tangled, but he thought that maybe he could see some buds.

"They're on the way," Will spoke from behind him, through the screen door. Mulder jumped a little at the sound of that voice, turned around.

"Your—" he stumbled a bit on the word. "Parents?"

"Yeah they—um—they're not far, actually. They'd called the police and, um, I guess there was video footage of me getting on the train. It'll be a few hours, still, but—" he looked down at the ground again. "Sorry. I gave them your address."

Mulder nodded, swiped a hand across his chin, thinking. "Why did you come here, Will?"

"I want to know."

"What do you want to know?"

Will shrugged. "Everything."

Mulder shut his eyes, thought of the tiny body he'd cradled in his arms. _Three days._ The boy standing in front of him was his son. _His son._ There was Scully in his face, in that jaw. What would it have been like to watch him grow from infancy, to see those familiar features begin to take shape? He was older than Mulder had been when Samantha was taken away but he still seemed so _young._ How could someone that young take on the weight of the world? How could—

"Hey," Will said, and that nervous edge was back in his voice again. "Hey, um, are you okay?"

There was Samantha in that face too, in the eyes, in the dimples. Mulder's DNA and Scully's DNA and all of their combined family histories, joined together to craft a new human being. This particular human being, standing in front of him, present and alive and very much his own person. Though he was certain that Will would not feel comfortable being marveled over, having the impossible miracle of his fingers and toes and living breathing self remarked upon the way one would with an infant, he remained remarkable nonetheless.

"You want to know everything," Mulder said, the words coming out in a rush of breath that might have been a laugh.

"Yeah."

"Join the club, kid."

*

Lacking any real collection of family photographs, Mulder had settled for handing over a box of case notes and clippings. Will sat at the kitchen table, feet hooked around the legs of his chair, looking over each item with keen interest. He paused over a faded newspaper cutout, brushed his thumb over the picture, breathed out in a low rush.

Mulder leaned over to see what he was looking at.

It was a shot of a crime scene, a covered body on a stretcher being removed from a house. In the background, slightly blurred, he stood in profile with Scully, their eyes locked in some unspoken conversation.

"That's my—" Will said. He cleared his throat, glanced briefly up at Mulder, his eyes darting away again just as fast. "That's my mom?"

"Yeah," Mulder said, his voice unexpectedly hoarse. "That's your mom."

"What's her name?"

"Dana."

"Dana," Will repeated, slowly, as if trying the word out. "Dana." He glanced around, eyes widening with sudden realization. "Is she—is she—"

"Um," Mulder said.

He was spared having to answer by the sound of tires on gravel. He and Will both glanced up, towards the window.

"Stay here," Mulder said.

He went outside into the afternoon sunlight.

Scully fairly flew out of her SUV, coming up the porch steps in a rush. He took her by the shoulders, slowed her panicked advance.

"Mulder," she said, ever-so-slightly out of breath. She looked him up and down. "What's going on?"

He found he didn't quite know what to say. Which was odd, because he'd often been told that he had too much to say, about almost everything. But this was—this was something new.

"Everything is fine," he said, squeezing her arms slightly, bending his head to look straight into her eyes. She held his gaze for a moment and breathed out, the tension leaving her body.

"Okay," she said. "Okay."

"There's someone here," he said. "Someone I think you should meet. But—"

She was already brushing past him towards the door, shoulders squared, ready for combat—and he supposed that was only natural, the byproduct of too many years of living with frayed nerves.

He caught her arm again. "Scully, wait."

She whirled back to face him, brows furrowed. "Mulder, what? What aren't you telling me?"

"I'm trying to," he said, and laughed a little. "Let me." His own voice sounded strange. "I'm trying to tell you—" _that the baby you gave up for adoption just showed up on our doorstep looking for us. Apparently, he has_ dreams _about us, by the way, did you ever suspect that maybe he's a little psychic?_

But she had lost interest in him, had stopped staring at him and was instead staring over his shoulder, and that wasn't good, because that meant—

"Mulder," she breathed. "Who—?"

He turned around. Will was standing behind the screen door, watching them. He was fidgeting with his hands, lifted one in a tentative wave.

"Scully," Mulder said.

She looked back at him, blinking, her face the kind of blank mask he associated with bad things, with diagnoses and death and unspoken words. He had not seen that face in some time, not even in the hospital when her mother had—

"Scully, just—" he started.

"William?" It was a statement and a plea all at once.

"Hi," he said, made no correction to Will this time, he just pushed out through the door and stood awkwardly on the porch with his hands in his pockets and his feet shuffling on the ground. He was going to be tall, Mulder thought almost absently.

_Do you like basketball? I like basketball. I put up a net behind the house. We could shoot a few hoops later, maybe, if you want._

Scully stepped forward towards him, her hands twitching forward. She hesitated, and there was a hitch in her breathing. Mulder wanted to reach out, _needed_ to reach out, but he wasn't sure if what he needed was what she needed.

He remained still.

"Can I—?" she asked, her voice low and choked. "Would you mind if I hugged you?"

Will shrugged, his lip curling up in a small little half-smile. "I guess so, sure."

She reached out and pulled him close, and Mulder stood in the sunlight and watched as Will's arms went around her in turn.

A dog barked.

He turned back towards Scully's car. Daggoo was standing on the driver's seat, his front paws perched on the steering wheel. His small frame wiggled with excitement. He barked again.

Scully stepped back with some reluctance, took Will's hands. She glanced over at Mulder. "Could you—"

Mulder waved her off, went down the steps and opened the car door. Daggoo leapt into his arms, body trembling, licking at his face.

"Stop it," he said sternly. "I know where that mouth has been."

He put the dog down on the ground, smiled a little as he ran circles around his feet before taking the porch steps in a single leap to spring up against Will's knee.

He'd never been one for pets, really. In the years they'd lived together, he and Scully had never spoken of it. Daggoo was—well, Daggoo was Scully's. Another facet of her new life, the life she spent half with and half away from Mulder. Daggoo lived in a Washington, DC apartment and accompanied Scully on her morning jogs, made himself at home on the couch while she was at the office, spent time with an accommodating neighbor when Scully was away on a case.

He was a nice enough little dog. His last owner had been a lizard monster, so he had that going for him. He had, to Mulder's knowledge, not eaten anyone, so that was a big improvement over the circumstances by which Scully had obtained her last case-related pet. But still, Mulder had not felt anything towards Daggoo other than a slightly disconcerting combination of amusement and jealousy.

But he looked up at his small house—his _home_ , he was a person who came home at night, to a home—and watched his son crouch down and giggle like a child as a wriggling little dog licked his face. Scully was crouched next to him, and Will turned and said something to her that Mulder was too far away to hear. They both laughed, and Scully looked up and caught his eye and her eyes were full and bright but she _smiled,_ a radiant smile, rare and full of unbridled joy.

And he decided he loved that damn dog.

*

They went inside, the three of them and Daggoo. Mulder made a fresh pot of coffee. Scully cleared the spread of files and photographs off of the kitchen table. He thought that maybe she lingered over the task just a little bit longer than she needed to.

They sat around the table and drank their coffee. Daggoo scampered off somewhere, probably to root out and chew up all of Mulder's shoes. He didn't mind.

"I'm glad I came," Will said. "I wanted to know you."

"I never stopped thinking about you," Scully told him. She did not seem able to tear her eyes away from his face.

"I dream about you," Will said. "Both of you. I knew exactly where I needed to go."

Mulder glanced at Scully. She looked back at him. Neither one seemed to know what to say.

Nothing seemed adequate. What could he say?

_If you see colored lights in the sky, run._

_If anyone comes knocking on the door wanting to talk to you about merchandise or black oil or super soldiers, run._

_Make sure you tell your doctor that you have a family history of cancer._

_Trust no one._

"I wish you could have met your grandmother," Scully said. "She—she passed away recently. But she loved you so very much. You spent a lot of time with her when you were first born."

Will frowned, scrunched up his forehead. "I don't remember."

She gave him a sad little smile. "You were just a baby. I think—I think there's a picture. Somewhere."

She pushed away from the table, went down the hall.

"You're not together," Will said, folding his hands together in front of him at the table. He looked very young and very serious. "Are you?"

"That's not an easy question to answer," Mulder said.

"She doesn't live here."

"What makes you so sure of that?"

"I have a mother and a sister," he said, rolled his eyes. "I've seen your bathroom. I _know_."

Mulder could not help but be amused. "Oh, I see."

"So. You were together. I mean. Obviously." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "But not now."

"No," Mulder agreed, suddenly weary. "We're not. Not in the way you're thinking, at least."

"You still work together?"

He nodded.

"Why?"

"Why do we work together, or why aren't we together?"

Will shrugged. "Both, I guess."

"That's a long story that I'm not—I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to share," Mulder said. "But I'll give you the short version. I love your mother. She loves me. We both loved you. _Love_ you. But it's like the song says, Will. Sometimes love ain't enough."

Will nodded slowly, looked down at his hands.

"There was a long period of time where—you were gone, and it was just the two of us. And we couldn't go home for, um, reasons I'm not going to get into right now. But we couldn't go home. So it was the two of us, here, together. And I was sad, but it was all right, because it was all I had. And then I—I got involved in something. A case. And it was—I was working again, doing something I was good at, for the first time in years. I was useful. And when the case was over, suddenly everything that was all right wasn't all right anymore."

"Because you thought of everything you were missing?"

He made an effort at a smile. "That's my boy."

Will kept on frowning down at his hands.

"I wasn't any good to anyone," Mulder said. "Not like that."

Will nodded slowly. "And now?"

"Now I have something. And things are better. Not—" he glanced up as Scully came back down the hall. "Not perfect. But better."

"Ta da," Scully said, putting a little photo album down on the table. Her smile was a little too wide, stiff at the edges.

She sat down in the empty chair, leaned on her elbows, watched as Will turned the pages.

"That's me?"

"That's you."

"I was small," he said, his tone wondering. "I'm bigger in all the pictures my parents have. Is that my—" he hesitated, glanced up. "Um. Grandmother?"

"Yes," Scully's voice was soft. She slid the photograph out of its plastic pocket. Maggie was smiling, cradling a swaddled infant bundle.

"I don't remember her," Will frowned. "She looks nice."

"She loved you," Scully said. She slipped the photo back into place. "She was there for you, and for me, at a time when I needed her so much."

Will didn't seem to know what to say to that.

"You said you have a sister," Mulder said, when the silence got to be too much.

"Yeah. She's kind of a pain."

"Sisters usually are."

He caught Scully's eye. Her lips quirked in a sad, knowing way.

"She's adopted like me," Will said. Then he frowned. "Only, not like me. She doesn't—she doesn't dream like I do. She—" he hesitated. "She's not weird like me."

"You're not—" Scully started, then she looked at Mulder, gave him a private little smile.

"It's not weird, so much as unique," Mulder said.

*

They ordered a pizza, ate at the kitchen table with grease dripping onto paper plates. Will folded his slice in half and watched the grease run down with a fascinated expression.

"We don't eat out a lot," he said. "My—um. My mom likes to cook."

Scully smiled politely, took a sip of soda.

"Oh boy," Will said, and they all turned to watch a station wagon lumber up the driveway.  
He set his slice down, wiped his hands, went out onto the porch. After a moment, Mulder followed. Scully remained seated, looking down at her folded hands.

A man got out of the car, looked around. He had the tall lean look of a farmer. Browned skin, calloused hands. Clothes neat but worn, solidly broken in. Jeans faded around the knees. His hair was thinning.

"Will," the man said. "Get in the car."

"Dad," Will said.

"Now."

"Hold on a second," Mulder said.

The man looked up and on his face was something between pity and fear.

"You've had a long trip," Mulder spoke slowly, softly, the way that he once had to victims of terrible crimes. "Why don't you come on inside? Have something to drink? We can talk about this."

A woman slid out of the passenger seat, stood nervously by the car with her arms folded over her chest.

"Jim," she said.

He ignored her, looked at the boy. "Will."

"Jim."

He turned, looked at his wife.

"You know why he's here," she said. Her eyes had begun to well. "Look at him, Jim."

He looked. Mulder could see the moment it clicked, the minute twitch of his face when he realized.

"Have you—" his mouth tightened, a thin little line. There was a flush rising on his cheekbones, a bloom of anger. "Have you been contacting him? Trying to lure him out here? This is the kind of thing they promised would never happen—"

"Jim."

"They _promised_ this wouldn't happen!"

"Dad," Will said, and his fa-- _Jim_ , Mulder thought, couldn't possibly bring himself to think of this man as his son's _father_ \-- Jim stopped speaking and stood there, fists clenched at his sides, breathing through his nose.

"Dad," Will said again, placating. "I came on my own. They didn't—they didn't know."

The fight seemed to go out of him. "One drink."

*

They were nice people, the Van de Kamps. They loved their son.

They sat at the kitchen table and politely drank a glass of soda. They paged through the photo album. Mrs. Van de Kamp looked at a photograph of Scully smiling down at William in her arms and made a very small sound.

Mr. Van de Kamp patted Daggoo, slipped him a bit of cheese under the table.

"Well," he said finally, standing up. "We have a very long drive."

Will nodded, looked down at the table. When he looked up his eyes were overbright.

"Could I come back some time?" Will asked. He turned towards his parents. "If it's okay?"

"Of course," Scully said. Her voice was hoarse. "Of course you can."

"Yes," Mr. Van de Kamp said. Just speaking seemed to cost him a lot. He sagged against his wife a little bit. "Yes, just—not like this. You can't run away, Will."

Will nodded. He stood up, found his sweatshirt, slipped it over his head.

"Take this," Scully said, pushing the photo album into his hands.

"But it's yours," he said.

"All of that—" there were tears in her eyes. Unshed. "I have memories. It's enough. You should—you should keep that. And know that we love you."

He nodded. When he hugged her, for a moment it seemed like she wasn't going to be able to let go. But she did, and she stepped back, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.

Will approached Mulder, smiling awkwardly. He slowly held out his hand.

"Definitely not," Mulder said, and hugged him. He was slim and strong and willowy and it was over much too soon.

He did not say goodbye.

They went out onto the porch and watched him walk back towards the car, flanked by his parents. He did not look back.

Mulder reached out his hand, found Scully's already waiting. He gripped her fingers.

The little station wagon started up, moved slowly down the driveway, wheels crunching on gravel. There was a brief glimpse of a pale face in the window and then they were gone.

They stood there, hand in hand, neither speaking for a long while.

Overhead, the stars were very bright.

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to everyone on Tumblr who rallied to the cause and answered my plea for help in identifying Mulder's car in the revival. A big thank you in particular to notwidelyunderstooddefinition, who provided screencaps of the car in question. :)


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